★ np: SS UU Stage 8.4 - Spellbound (Aegislash Unbanned, Victini Banned)

[Chicknemacnchez]

1. Aegislash. It hits super hard and breaks incredibly easily

2. Celesteela. The defensive set atleast. It's just so damn passive and just gets ruined my S and A+ ranks.

3. Bisharp. Bruh this bitch clicks sd and wins its so easy.

4. None cause im lame but I really want to try out Chandelure. Magnezone is so sick rn specs gets kill every time.

5. Sirfecth'd gang.

 

[iceblazer]

1. Scizor. Generic answer, I know, but it’s just such a splashable mon and great wincon that I can’t resist but love using it. Zeraora is a close second, probably the best pivot UU has and Zera has a lot of different sets one can use, ie BU, Sub, Mixed etc.

2. Aegislash. It’s hard to get it in when each competent team runs at least one Dark mon or something with Knock, it has to be wary of clicking Shadow Ball and Flash Cannon when Kommo-o and Scizor are on every team, and it gets chipped easily without Grassy Terrain or Wish support. Definitely not the team destroyer I was expecting.

3. Good lord, you better have priority or a scarfer if you’re up against Alakazam or else its gg if it gets up a NP. Goltres is annoying as hell on HO. If you can’t kill it fast enough, it sweeps your team. If you can’t kill it with a supereffective move and has an Agility boost, you’re even more screwed.

4. Zarude is a pretty good scarfer and pivot in this meta. Rhyperior is also fun to use, being a decent check to Scizor and Zeraora thanks to Solid Rock and just being a good rocker overall. Oh, and Chandelure totally rocks, it’s strangely satisfying to spam Fire Blast and Shadow Ball and watch shit drop dead.

5. I miss the days where Noivern and Copperajah were legit threats :(

 

[Rawbi]

1. Goltres is a hideous threat that a lot of people don't seem prepared to tackle. You just can't allow it to get momentum or else you're in a lot of trouble. The defensive set is also incredibly useful to stop stuff like Alakazam and Chandelure. Hatterene is another scary foe that's fallen off the radar.

2. Aegislash goes between lmao godmon to wow this thing is ass like every other match lol. Very match-up dependent. Can't deny its typing being wonderful though.

3. Zeraora is annoying to face without a Scarfer or webs. Not a single mon, but Screens are irritating to me too.

4. Rhyperior! Need a backbone against Electrics? He's ya boi. It also helps with the aforementioned Goltres. Really, give this thing a try. Zydog is a fun offensive tool too.

5. Porygon-Z. Poor glitchy duck ;~;

 

[Freeroamer]

Cool idea guys, here’s mine, have tried to avoid repeating the same as others have said before:

1.

I don’t use this on every team, but when I do I’m very impressed by it at the moment. With the combination of the Victini ban and Aegislash becoming legal again, Slowking usage seems to have plummeted (on ladder at least) to the point where you can run this and not feel like you need to Flip Turn to make any progress in a lot of games. It’s fast and strong enough to be useful in HO matchups and on the rare occasion you’re not playing some kind of cheese on the ladder, can do a lot of work in other matchups too! Still blanked by King but only til next week...

2.

Even if you don’t run Defog on it (which is the correct choice), I just find this to be an underwhelming mon. I just don’t think I ever get matchups where I’m like fuck, my rotom really does well here or even where I’m like dang I’m glad I’ve got rotom for x. Half the stuff I want it to try and check has Knock Off and even when it does get on the field it’s caught in a constant mindgame of whether it should Volt Switch vs potential grounds/zera or risk Overheating and giving room to the opp due to how terrible a STAB move Overheat is on a defensive pokemon. Really not a fan!

3.

As someone who thinks Jirachi is for the most part unviable and that defensive Celesteela is bad, this shouldn’t be surprising but I hate seeing the Hatt in preview. My steels generally tend to be Scizor (doesn’t OHKO even with band) with some Skarm (absolute fodder and even gets it’s Spikes blocked) thrown in so the matchups are always tough. On some other builds I have Slowking+Nidoqueen but that’s still tough because it can boost to +2 as I go King and port and trade with my queen if it so chooses. I can never replicate how amazing it seems to be against me when I actually use it though so maybe I’m just bad...

4.

Really fun pokemon to use when you run into bog standard Scizor/Krook/Mence/Amoong/King/filler teams, comes into Amoong fairly freely once something has been sacked to sleep (fuck sleep) and more or less picks a kill up each time with Specs Boomburst. I think there might be some merit to Shift Gear on HO again but I haven’t really tried it or seen anyone else use it so maybe it’s just not good. He also sucks hard in offense matchups outside of being a shaky check to Scizor so there’s that. One of the coolest mon designs oat tho...

5.

I miss team player cat being an absolute progress machine in almost any matchup. The amount of SS games that were won in the previous UUPL by Incineroar either outright winning or setting up the conditions for something else to win was absolutely crazy, was great on standard builds or cheesier stuff. Back when base 60 speed was heat because it beat out also broken Panda

 

[Celebiii]

1. What Pokemon have you enjoyed using most in the current UU meta?
Kyurem, absolutely. It clicks buttons and nothing wants to switch into it. Gonna miss it when it leaves for OU in the tier shift.

2. What Pokemon has disappointed you the most (i.e. what has been underwhelming for you)?
This one is hard to say because there are quite a few disappointing mons in the current meta, but my vote will probably go to Tapu Bulu. It has such nice traits on paper but it has quite a few drawbacks in choice of coverage, the unimpressive speed tier, and the fact that you're always giving something up to put it on your team. My teams always seem to do poorly whenever I try to use Bulu on them.

3. What Pokemon are you most afraid to see on the opposing team?
Offensive Kommo-o. This thing is an absolute terror after a boost, and it has multiple good sweeping sets, with the most scary being Clangorous Soul. IMO it restricts teambuilding terribly and I really hate having to account for it.

4. Have you had any successes lately with Pokemon from RU or NU that you think could find a niche in UU?
Zarude and Chandelure are obvious picks here but Milotic, Cobalion, Rhyperior, and Noivern also all show promise in the tier. Below that, Sylveon and my current favourite Mienshao also are looking better and better. I think Bronzong will be worth experimenting with as well post-shifts.

5. What Pokemon do you miss being viable in UU? (RIP Noivern and Heliolisk)

Celebi Rant

Depending on what rises out of the tier and subsequent bans I think it may have a niche again soon! Celebi would love for Skarmory to be gone as a resist to its STABs, for Kyurem to leave as a bulky offensive threat, and for Zeraora to leave as a fast revenge killer vs. it. It won't love Slowking going as a major target, but Alakazam is very likely to be suspect tested and Celebi would certainly appreciate it leaving the tier too. With the remaining Pokemon in UU, I think Celebi can work with some team support. It has some great targets to that it can outspeed and hit super-effectively with Grass/Psychic/Fighting coverage in Amoonguss, Azumarill, Bisharp, Conkeldurr, Crawdaunt, Kommo-o, Krookodile (with no scarf), Nidoqueen, Primarina, Quagsire, and Rotom-Wash. It can also come in on many Grass-, Water-, and Fighting-type attacks. Very much looking forward to trying the Time Travel Pokemon out again post-shifts!

Outside of Celebi, I miss using Araquanid and Centiskorch. I am doubtful on Centiskorch being viable again, but maybe post-shift we can see Araquanid (and webs as a whole) become a bit more viable if Zeraora leaves the tier.

 

[Monky25]

Might as well answer the questions since I'm bored
1. Dang, its hard to choose. Personally, something I've been having a lot of fun with is psychic terrain teams with

. Indeede-F is a cool setter because of the momentum it provides with healing wish, even if the rest of the team has full health. Psychic seed zera with bulky up shreds hyper offense teams and sets up on Grimmsnarl while terrain is still up due to priority taunt being blocked. Zam is stupidly bonkers and it is always fun to spam higher power psychic attacks. Lastly, the teapot is absolutely nasty with its best answer incineroar being unseen. The only Pokemon it really has to worry about is steela which eats +2 shadow ball and g moltres and bisharp which can revenge it.

2.

the more I use this guy the more it sucks. I was super high on it during the latias meta but now with spedef sets and scarf sets being outclassed alongisde better steels like steela, aegislash, skarm, and scizor existing it is quite hard to justify this. Other Pokemon that are meh rn would be

due to its poor speed and abhorrent 4MSS, it needs so much support to break its kinda sad.

sucks as well due to grimmsnarl being a far better setter and every time I try out veil i end up regretting it.

3.

would be my answer, its just very good and the most threatening Pokemon in the meta so I gotta watch out for it. I wouldn't say its broken though and I would keep it around if given the choice. Helps keep cheese in check a bunch. Too bad it is likely to rise to OU soon.

4. We've all talked about chandelure, rhyperior, and zarude but I think

is an underrated breaker. Terrak leaving gives it some breathing room as a fast fighting breaker and regenerator helps offset its life orb recoil damage.

5. I miss the two months when we had Tyranitar, bring him back soon :(

 

[Band]

So I know there's only one week left until April, but I feel like things have been a little quieter lately (maybe it's just that I'm checking the forum more often than usual haha). So I wanted to ask the following to stir up conversation just for fun:

1. What Pokemon have you enjoyed using most in the current UU meta?

2. What Pokemon has disappointed you the most (i.e. what has been underwhelming for you)?

3. What Pokemon are you most afraid to see on the opposing team?

4. Have you had any successes lately with Pokemon from RU or NU that you think could find a niche in UU?

5. What Pokemon do you miss being viable in UU? (RIP Noivern and Heliolisk)

Hope everyone is having fun playing and has a wonderful day!

1- Aegislash, partly because it's an actual good pick, great typing etc, and partly because it's a "new" addition to the tier, so toying w/ new stuff is always nice. can't waut till we get Buzz next week :bite:

2- Nidoqueen. It's incredibly hard to switch into, but that's basically it. It's just Knock fodder for Zera and dies to every other Electric-type because of coverage (thundy/thundy-t), their secondary typing (rotom-w), or their breaking power (rotom-h overheat and specs zone flash cannon). It's a rocker that can't find opportunities to set rocks because it gets chipped extremely easily, and unless you switch it into an Electric-type move, it gets chipped/hurt badly and dies. At least it can force trades w/ defog mence and rotom to keep rocks up.

3- Galarian Moltres. Be it RestTalk or Double Dance, if you don't have an answer for it or let it setup, you lose. It's far from broken or suspect worthy, but it can win games so easy it's ridiculous. Under screens it's even more aids. Alakazam is also another one that scares me to death. Magic Guard giving it immunity to hazards and LO recoil basically make it so you are never punished by using Alakazam, since it can literally just come in after something dies or you volt/turn/port and hit something on the other team for a billion damage.

4-

Juno. But seriously, show me our Nidoqueen switch-ins after Slowking leaves. Chansey? pffffffffft. Boots Flip Turn is very nice, and Milo can answer others scary stuff like zam and chandy.

5- Mienshao, Cobalion, Necrozma, Galarian Weezing, Porygon-Z. From what I can recall, Noivern was pretty centralizing and an actual annoying mon to face unless u had like a Fairy-type, cuz our steels back then were either stupid (rachi) or bad against noiv (coba, skarm, doub, etc), so I don't miss it at all.

 

[Luirromen]

1. What Pokemon have you enjoyed using most in the current UU meta?

Boy, Kommo-o its just amazing, its probably de second most versatile mon in the tier after Mew, Defensive sets are pretty good to keep in check non PRought Zeraora, Krookodile, Scizor, etc. Offensive ones are funny to use. My personal favorite set is Offensive Rocks. Also Kommo-o is not difficult to slap on a team.

2. What Pokemon has disappointed you the most (i.e. what has been underwhelming for you)?

Don't get me wrong, Nihilego is good, however it lacks several competition as a Rock type sr setter with the electric inmune Rhyperior, and ofensive sets tend to be quite easy to handle with pretty much any steel type, and Slowking being a good pivot that can naturally check it and one of the best mons in the tier being a steel type with priority steel stab doesn't help either. Scarf sets are meh, as you would needsupport to get opposing threats on range, like running on spikes teams.

3. What Pokemon are you most afraid to see on the opposing team?
and
Zeraora its just incredible annoying to deal with, considering is the fastest non scarfer mon in the tier that can just Knock your entire team and then procede to scape with Volt Switch, moving before you most of the time, also the fact that depending on the 4° move, your MU against it might be better or worse.

Mew on the other hand, its the most versatile option on the meta, and can be really annoying depending on the set. Guys, Im pretty sure everyone here has at least lost 1 time to Cosmic Power Mew or wanted to break your computer screen when they face it, GOD it can become annoying as hell specially on screens.

4. Have you had any successes lately with Pokemon from RU or NU that you think could find a niche in UU?

I really feel that Tornadus its pretty underrated as an offensive threat, with all the bulky grass types that you see 9/10 games you play. Acces to Nasty Plot and Fire/Fighting coverage for steel and rock types, a really good base speed. It doens't have incredible abilities tho (unless you wanna run a Physical/Mix set with Defiant). Also Tornadus appreciate Magnezone as a teammate, as it can remove Celesteela and Scizor to avoid let it rk with Bullet Punch.

I dont have any idea if Rhyperior could rise in usage, as it had a good tournament succes is is really good rn as one of the best answers to Zeraora, and can lure on Amoonguss/Tangrowth with stuff like Heat Crash, Megahorn and Toxic. Its also a decent check to G-Moltres.

5. What Pokemon do you miss being viable in UU?
:(
Zarude its my second favorite galar mon, and I loved to use it at the time it was one of the best picks on UU with the HDB set being the most common one, but as an offensive grass type is outclassed by Bulu, and it gets walled all day by Skarm/Mence/Amoong/Tangrowth and actually its limited to a Choice Scarf set. During the time that Victini was still around, I made a good core around Fsight Victini + BU Zarude, and I got good results with it even on tournaments, since all Victini answers were pretty abusable by Zarude and Zarude most common answers (Amoonguss and Tangrowth) would not like to take a Fsight from Victini. Hope my boy Zarude gets better on the time the meta evolves.

 

[haunted paper]

1. What Pokemon have you enjoyed using most in the current UU meta?
Aegislash + Tangrowth. Both have been very easy for me to use in the current meta. I enjoy the King's Shield 50/50s and the regenerator double plays.

2. What Pokemon has disappointed you the most (i.e. what has been underwhelming for you)?
Krookodile. I think it sucks. Band looks strong on paper yet in practice, it tends to have a tough time scoring a KO or it only gets chip from the replays I've seen and in personal practice. Scarf sets are hard to use because Zera abuses boots but also because there are plenty of viable answers that can come in on what it wants to go for. It also has a tough time coming in.
Just want to point out that if you think it's good and you got good mileage out of it then more power to ya.

3. What Pokemon are you most afraid to see on the opposing team?
Tangrowth. It never dies.

4. Have you had any successes lately with Pokemon from RU or NU that you think could find a niche in UU?
Umbreon, Vaporeon, Slowbro-G, Darmanitan, Cobalion, and Suicune.

5. What Pokemon do you miss being viable in UU? (RIP Noivern and Heliolisk)
Crobat.

 

[gye5]

An unban you say???? Well looks like this is headed in a different direction.....

View attachment 325335​

No thanks, that list looks diabolic

 

[467 11 11p]

1. What Pokemon have you enjoyed using most in the current UU meta?
Probably Mew ngl LOL shit can run so many sets (aside from cp) and each is very good (DD, 3 att + spike, demon mew, etc)

2. What Pokemon has disappointed you the most (i.e. what has been underwhelming for you)?
Tapu Bulu when this garbage ass mon dropped to UU I thought it would be broken but low and beyond it is the woat mon of UU

3. What Pokemon are you most afraid to see on the opposing team?
Zan Bam this mon is so fucking broken it needs to be banned within 2 minutes after I post this.

4. Have you had any successes lately with Pokemon from RU or NU that you think could find a niche in UU?
I could close my fucking eyes spin around and point to any random ass pokemon in RUBL/RU and that random mon would be good in uu. Globro, Thundurus, Zog, Chandy, Obsta, Magne, Milo, Obsta, Rhyp. Toge, Zarude. Sorry esta not umb tho D: this is conks tier. NU poltea, barb, sharpedo, araq, tryan, syl, broken ass GODLURK prolly could find a niche in uu. Seriously uu ladd start using good mons more smh

5. What Pokemon do you miss being viable in UU? (RIP Noivern and Helioisk)
Necro, haxo, centi and silvally

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

1. Kyurem, and chandy. If unprepared for, they just terrorize teams and are unstoppable. They also make for a decent core due to kyurem counters not liking chandy and vise versa.

2. Def tang and moongus, they just get worn down and if they want to check zera they are easily volt switched on and something else abuses them like kyurem and chandy. They also are easily predictable and have no diversity in them

3. Zera, pain in the ass to face. If its on the scale of insta losing then clangorus soul kommo-o.

4. Chandy, Rhyperior, magnezone are some mons i find a lot of success with, I think they deserve more exposure.

5. CB haxorus

 

[notsotryharding33]

Yeah 467 11 11p, I agree, Alakazam is full within reason of a ban. It barely has any counters outside of futureport king + scarfer/zera, or cele, which still get's chipped by rocks damage, is vulnerable to knock, and is quite recoverless, especially since Magic Guard invalidates Leech Seed. Expanding Force seems to be a major issue rn, as Chansey cannot take that on at all, especially if Alakazam is packed with Recover.

Overall Pokemon I enjoy:

1. Skarmory

Nice Spiker, and phaser. Check to mons such as Krookodile, DD Mence, Lycanroc, and Scizor.

2. Zeroara

Very fast, and strong pokemon. Very great FS abuser, and provides momentum for a lot of teams.

3. Kyurem

I'm sure this thing will rise to OU next month due to usage, but absolutely like devouring teams with Specs. Has a great combination of stabs + earth power to threaten the majority of the tier.

4. Rotom-Wash

Nice Mamo check, non dragon-move mence check and Fire resist, as well as a Voltturner, and status mon with the ability to invalidate mons such as Cele, Krook, and Rachi with WOW.
Also the splashability of this mon is very great imo.

5. Gyarados

Overall I love this things combination of dual stabs+ power whip as a way of being able to threaten most checks. Yes ik the loss of Z-Move has a big impact on it's success, but i still think this is a very mega offensive powerhouse. On screens it's nice too as a way of presenting it with a lot of setup opportunity to sweep teams unprepared for it. Ultimately I love this mon, even more than mence.

 

[gglrg]

1. Mew. It can do so much whether you want it to be a hazard setter, set up sweeper, utility mon, stallbreaker, demon it can do the lot and run so many of these sets succesfully.

2. Chansey. This sucks ass. It literally doesn't accomplish anything in a lot of games, it's very passive shut down by taunt and knock off and strong physical attackers are annoying for it. it can't even beat some special attackers like alakazam and thundurus-t.

3. Alakazam and bisharp. Alakazam is fast and very strong and after a nasty plot boost switch-ins are really not there bar like celesteela. You seriously need something to outspeed or priority this mon is broke. Bisharp is sooo annoying with it's sucker punch mindgames and how strong it is.

4. Obstagoon and sylveon. Obstagoon is a great check to sub toxic aegislash and a hard hitter with guts with good coverage and very strong stabs. Sylveon is a great wish passer and good coverage in mystical fire to catch steels and is a nice check to things like salamence.

5. Heracross beetle just click buttons :(

 

[shooting star]

Quickban Alakazam.

Alakazam in my opinion functions very much like Terrakion: you bring it in safely, click something, yeet out of there, and then the cycle repeats. Sure, Slowking may rise, but then the tier is not short of VoltTurn pivots that are more than capable of supporting Alakazam. Half the time you do not even need to click Nasty Plot; it already hits like a truck right off the bat. And let's face it: Zeraora will most likely rise to OU, making Alakazam the fastest mon in the tier bar Scarfers.

My main concern is that unlike other wallbreakers, it is difficult to punish Alakazam from coming in all the time; thanks to Magic Guard, it need not fear entry hazards nor Life Orb recoil. You can even run Focus Sash as an emergency check against hyper offensive teams. Have you tried supporting Alakazam with Psychic Terrain? How are you going to revenge-kill it now? Wearing it down with chip damage does not apply here since no good player will let Alakazam take a single HP worth of damage.

What are the benefits of a quickban? For one, the maximum relevant speed tier gets lowered to 115, finally giving people the opportunity to make LO Azelf great again. The survey could not have come at a better timing. Either we quickban this simultaneously with the tier shifts, or we hold a suspect test and hear more complaints about how cheesy the ladder is before the majority votes to, in all likelihood, ban Alakazam anyway.

 

[StarFalcon555]

Now, I do agree that Alakazam needs to leave the tier sooner rather than later. But I would much rather it be in a suspect test, and for that suspect test to be after the shifts. This is for one very big reason; if tier trends from the last two months stay true, Latios will be dropping to UU. Latios is basically a slightly slower, much bulkier Alakazam with another STAB typing, and because of this, it will obviously outclass Alakazam. Latios will also obviously be much more broken than Alakazam, so it would make more sense to quickban it and suspect Alakazam.

Of course Latios could have suddenly jumped in OU usage and this whole post is for moot

 

[Chicknemacnchez]

Now, I do agree that Alakazam needs to leave the tier sooner rather than later. But I would much rather it be in a suspect test, and for that suspect test to be after the shifts. This is for one very big reason; if tier trends from the last two months stay true, Latios will be dropping to UU. Latios is basically a slightly slower, much bulkier Alakazam with another STAB typing, and because of this, it will obviously outclass Alakazam. Latios will also obviously be much more broken than Alakazam, so it would make more sense to quickban it and suspect Alakazam.

Of course Latios could have suddenly jumped in OU usage and this whole post is for moot

What difference does it make? Alakazam just gonna pause on being broken because for another broken to take its place? It makes no sense to say Latios is dropping and will be quickbanned, so Alakazam is only suspect worthy. Why wait for the changes and Zeraora to rise, the only thing that outspeeds it, and then wait for the quickban of Latios, and then we can ban Alakazam. You can clarify this and still believe that its the right path but this reason is dumb.

 

[StarFalcon555]

What difference does it make? Alakazam just gonna pause on being broken because for another broken to take its place? It makes no sense to say Latios is dropping and will be quickbanned, so Alakazam is only suspect worthy. Why wait for the changes and Zeraora to rise, the only thing that outspeeds it, and then wait for the quickban of Latios, and then we can ban Alakazam. You can clarify this and still believe that its the right path but this reason is dumb.

Of course Alakazam isn't going to stop being broken just because of Latios. What I meant to say that both Latios and Alakazam would be broken, but one is a tad bit more broken than the other, which warrants a quickban for one and a suspect test for the other.

Another option could be that, if Latios does drop, Alakazam and Latios could be suspect tested or quickbanned together, just like how Bewear and Pangoro received a double suspect in NU due to their extremely similar roles.

 

[Fusion Flare]

i find the idea of choosing to suspect Alakazam rather than quick banning it rather strange. even with Zeraora and Slowking, two things that can somewhat stave it off, on the rise to leave UU for OU, Alakazam is still busted as all hell. so a suspect would be pretty pointless other than watching the wails of the UU discord lamenting the UU reqs acheivement test because of how shitty ladder is.

i’ve also heard people saying that latios is coming so we should quickban that and test zam, as if we have only one shot or something.
would it KILL anyone if we just quickbanned both and save most of the tier the trouble of 2 weeks of an effective death row?

 

[BigFatMantis]

So there seems to be a lot of chatter about an Alakazam quickban I see, which is understandable considering how difficult it is to play around. But I think we should cautiously avoid quickbanning it, or anything else, at this juncture considering the entire tier is going to change in a week with rises and drops. I am aware that some people may already know exactly what is rising/dropping, but it would be too hasty to make any decisions until the metagame plays out for a bit and we see everything in action.

The UU metagame changes very drastically whenever we see multiple shifts, and that's going to be no different with these new shifts even without knowing what they are. Something like Alakazam, which is a monster and has little to no defensive counterplay atm, could very easily find niche answers that are currently unexplored that, all of a sudden, are no longer niche due to various factors changing the metagame (who knows, maybe suddenly Goodra and Diancie are premier special walls? Not going to get into any specifics because that's the point - we don't know the specifics). I am not saying that Alakazam will definitely be ok after shifts. My point is more that we should not be so hasty in making any sort of decision until we see how everything plays out, otherwise you could unintentionally hurt the meta rather than help it. If it turns out it's super broken after a few days of the meta going on, then ok, let's ban it/suspect it, no big deal.

There is really no point to jump the gun, whether it's a suspect or quickban, when you don't have to, and we have been living with Alakazam for a long time it's not going to kill anyone to deal with it just a little longer. Otherwise there's a chance we could all be making a mistake, when we could have just been 4 days more patient.

 

[Monky25]

Might as well put my thoughts out there- I am in support of a quick ban to Alakazam. There are no really good arguments of keeping it, yeah having offense checks isn’t that bad except only 1 Pokémon, being zeraora, naturally outspeeds it, with the rest having to be scarfed, which means that if one of your scarfed revenge killers happens to get knocked you lose your primary method of forcing out zam. There are no true counters to nasty plot zam, at +2 (which it can get up quite often despite its poor bulk) very few things switch in, only being AV Tang, celesteela, and bulky Moltres, with them all being shaky checks. Just look at this week for victim of the week, it’s all revenge killers that depend on an item to revenge kill. When zera inevitably leaves this means you only can have 1 offensive check as nobody will run 2 scarfers on the same team. This heavily constrict the meta and with every experienced player wanting to ban Alakazam and no good arguments to not ban it, it makes sense that we shouldn’t waste time for a 2 week suspect on the literal fuck hole known as the ladder for a result in an obvious ban.

also I’m pretty sure they said action won’t be taken until shifts anyway so I wouldn’t worry about it being premature. The latios argument also doesn’t make sense, both should be quick banned there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. If latios is more broken than zam and leaves first, that doesn’t make zam any less broken than it is now.

 

[ramolost]

laevin asked me to do this post because he is an idiot and cant do it himself so there are my thoughts about zam.

zam has been a huge problem for the tier since tini quickban being the new obnixious psychic mon. while there is some counters to zam such as chansey scizor steela goltres sylveon or slowking, they all get worn down easily since zam will likely : knock the boots / leftovers / eviolite to get them in a 2HKO range. the fast dark mons cant switch on it because they are likely to lose their scarf and then drop to dgleam. because of that, zam will likely solo BO / balance / stalls. although, zam being pressured by the 2 most commons mons which r zera and scizor isnt good for it and it heavily depends on volturn support to get in bcoz of its awful bulk.
so at first i was for a suspect because the whole argument : it will result in a ban anyway do not suspect it is dumb. zam is dumb but it was uu for a couple months and while being a powerhouse in uu, i cant just see the idea where it is so unhealthy for uu that a quick ban would be required. nevertheless, sir tony flygon said something smart in uu council chat which sold the quick ban for me. in 3 days we are losing some uu staples such as slowking skarm kyu and some other mons are dropping . the meta will change quite a lot and i think it should change in one go. hosting a suspect alongside with threats such as latios dropping and our best walls leaving seems very counterproductive to me.

therefore, quick ban alakazam